Southeast prevails over Eisenhower in 'ugly game'

Bill Welt Staff Writer @billwelt

Saturday

Dec 8, 2018 at 12:01 AM

There was a gamut of fouls and free throws.

There was confusion.

It was a game nobody wants to experience again, but Southeast High School prevailed in the end 84-53 over Decatur Eisenhower in Friday’s Central State Eight Conference boys basketball matchup at Herb Scheffler Gymnasium.

“That was totally out of control,” Eisenhower coach Rodney Walker said. “I’ve never seen a game reffed like that in my life. I don’t like blaming anything on refs, but that was ridiculous.

“It was ugly to play at, ugly to coach, probably ugly for the fans to watch. It was too much guessing not knowing what was going on.”

That included at the end of the third quarter.

Referees Dane Severado, Carl Jones and Jeff Kurtz initially ruled goaltending and awarded Eisenhower’s R.J. Walker a foul-and-1 after his shot was blocked off the backboard with under 20 seconds remaining.

Southeast quickly scored to end the third quarter ahead comfortably 67-44. But after the referees gathered around the scorers’ table during the break, R.J. Walker’s basket from the previous play was overturned and had to convert one more free throw to make it 67-43 instead before the ball could be inbounded for the start of the fourth quarter.

“It’s supposed to be a fun game to play,” Walker said. “It wasn’t fun at all.”

There were a total of 56 fouls, including a technical foul against coach Walker early in the fourth quarter, and 67 free throw attempts. Thirty-one fouls were whistled against Southeast, which is ranked No. 2 in Class 3A by The Associated Press and improved to 5-1 overall and 3-0 in conference play. The Panthers dropped to 2-4 overall and 1-2 in the CS8.

Eisenhower shot 26 of 38 at the free throw line while Southeast went 20-for-29 at the charity stripe.

“It was total confusion,” Southeast coach Lawrence Thomas said. “You’ve got to get a hold of the game. I thought there was a lot of inconsistent moments where the officials didn’t get hold of the game. But I tell our kids, we can’t control that part. Let’s control the part that we can control. In the end, that’s what we had to do.

“The game had no rhythm. I’m sure that’s what coach Walker was referring to. It was a whistle-fest. It was an ugly game and I think he wanted a different game and I wanted a different game, too. But you get what you get and you’ve got to play your schedule.”

If any team was able to get any momentum, it was Southeast in the second quarter.

Senior guard Stepheon Sims sparked a 10-0 run to give the Spartans a 30-17 advantage. By halftime, Southeast led 42-23.

“We just had to wait for our opportunity to attack the open spaces,” Sims said of Eisenhower’s zone defense. “They’re little and don’t have any bigs, so we just had to take our time to get it down low and open up whatever we can when we attack.”

Senior point guard Terrion Murdix led Southeast with 22 points, while senior teammate Anthony Fairlee had a couple of dunks in the second half and finished with 18 points.

“We just have to try to shut that out and focus on what we can control,” Fairlee said. “What we could do was stop them from scoring and run up the score for us.”

Eisenhower freshman guard Brylan Phillips was the only player to reach double digits on the other side with 16 points.

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